//------------------------------// // 16 - Iron Veil // Story: Death Valley // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// Why didn’t it work? Why had she said that? Why didn’t it work? Why had she said that? The crowd was still silent, but when her mind slowed down enough to think, Amanita could feel the tension in it getting wound up, tighter and tighter. The only thing holding them back was leftover bewilderment from her first announcement. They’d turn on her the second they knew what was going on. Arrastra was catching on faster than most. She looked at Amanita, at Pyrita, at Amanita, at Pyrita, her mouth moving soundlessly. She slowly lowered her ears. “Look, look, look,” Amanita said, unsure whether she was waving her hooves placatingly or condescendingly, “I, I’m sorry, I, I didn’t know-” “You… cusséd. Moon calf,” growled Arrastra, her wings flaring, her eye glinting. Crosscut stepped forward, a leg up. “Ma…” she warned. “You smotch-eyed polecat!” Arrastra lunged, fangs bared. Amanita screamed, stumbled back and down, curled up. It was one of the best positions to survive a beating. But Crosscut jumped between them and somehow managed to hold Arrastra back. “Ma!” “What manner o’ frost-taked game are ye playin’?” shrieked Arrastra. Her wings beat, pushing her forward even with Crosscut’s earth pony strength holding her back. Her hooves swiped the air like she was trying to rip Amanita’s face off with claws. “Dae ye devil ponies fer fun? Dae ye want tae down me?” Still curled up, Amanita’s mind was running too fast to let her think. She blinked; her eyes were watering. Was she crying? The crowd was getting louder; it submerged her own voice, barely above a whisper. “No, please, I didn’t-” At some point, Code and Whippletree had joined Crosscut; Arrastra was still moving forward like she was being pushed by Discord himself. “Or dae ye like feelin’ big? That it?” Her wings pumped and her hooves gouged the earth, but they had nothing in the fury in her voice or the murder in her eye. “Makin’ yer brag ’bout how yer the masterest unicorn, then alibiyin’ yer failures? That it, ye necromancin’ blatherskite?” “Arrastra,” Whippletree said. “She-” He glanced at Amanita; she could almost feel the shame coming from him. “She did her best, it ain’t her fault,” he said weakly. But Arrastra’s efforts suddenly stopped. She stumbled back, nearly collapsing into the snow. Her entire body heaved with the force of her breaths. For one moment, Amanita thought she’d calmed down. Then: “That unlicked foal promised me my family back!” And Arrastra buried her face in her hooves, weeping. Amanita risked uncurling, but the look Crosscut gave her almost made her stop. Crosscut’s mouth was thin, like she was clamping it shut to avoid saying what she desperately wanted to say. Whippletree stepped up to her, put his hoof next to hers. He began, “Crosscut, dona-” But she just grabbed him and pulled him to a hug. She wasn’t even crying; all she could give was a whimper. The crowd was getting louder, some yelling insults. Her joints unnaturally tight, Amanita stood. She tried to say something to Code — what, she wasn’t sure — when a small rock hit her on the head. Someone had done that in Grayvale, once. A day later, the town was destroyed, thanks to Circe. The two events were unrelated, but killing them all and resurrecting them later would solve this. Assuming she could resurrect them. With her emotions in turmoil, a tiny giggle inched its way out. “Come on,” Code hissed in her ear. She roughly shoved Amanita away from Arrastra and her family. “Let’s get out of here.” Amanita stumbled. Her hooves seemed to be on the wrong legs. “W-where’re we going?” she mumbled. “Away.” The crowd tried to draw up on them and unconsciously block them off. In spite of her small size, Code easily pushed ponies aside with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary. Amanita staggered after her before the gap could close again. Insults and invectives, some loud, some not, flew through the air in flocks, battering her ears. Killing them would get it to stop. Then they were out, Bitterroot and Charcoal in unmoving shock. “What happened?” Bitterroot asked. “Nothing,” said Amanita breathlessly. Her bones were cold, both from her mind and her damp furs. “Nothing happened and something should’ve happened and I don’t know why nothing happened.” She tried to block out the yells from behind her. It didn’t work. Code began speaking. “We’re going back-” A snow-covered rock hit her on the neck; she barely flinched and just brushed the snow away. “-back to the inn. Back to the inn,” she repeated preemptively. She raised a hoof to move. “You’uns stay right there,” growled Arrastra with force Amanita had rarely heard from anypony before. The crowd parted and she walked out, her head and ears both low. Her expression had technically softened, but only because she was bottling up her fury. Amanita instinctively froze and bowed her head, remembering how Circe could get in those moods. She examined the ground; the snow had been trod on so often it was being compressed back down to water. “Look at me. Look at me, ye slack-twist.” Somehow, Amanita managed to go against her conditioning and raise her head. Arrastra was mere feet from her, dangerously expressionless. She opened her mouth. Code stepped in between them, shoving them apart as only an earth pony could. She still seemed unperturbed, even as Amanita felt magic twist in the earth below. “Ma’am,” she said, “if there-” “I ain’t talkin’ tae youn,” snapped Arrastra, jabbing Code in the chest. Or tried to. Code whipped her hoof up, caught Arrastra’s hoof, and redirected it back to the ground, all without blinking or looking away. “I am the leader of our group,” she said calmly. “You talk to me.” “Ye’re upholdin’ her?” Arrastra pointed at Amanita. “After she-” “Code,” Amanita said quietly. “I’ve seen her work,” Code said. “I don’t know why it didn’t work now-” “Code.” Somehow, Amanita couldn’t raise her voice. Arrastra snorted and pawed the ground. “’Course ye dinnae. All you’uns ken nothin’! How long’ve you’uns been ’ere? Three day? An’ ye dinnae have ary-” “We’re doing our best!” Charcoal cut in. She didn’t sound like her, yelling like that. “This ley line is weird! It doesn’t bake sense-” “Sae y’ain’t the master hooves ye claimed ye were,” said Arrastra, whirling on her. “Y’ain’t even a pony! I dinnae ken-” Charcoal’s ears immediately went back. And was it Amanita’s imagination or were her eyes glowing? “That doesn’t natter! I can ghast magic just-” Arrastra burst into bitter laughter. “Lissen tae yerself! Ye cannae even speak pro-” And then Charcoal was on fire. The coat of her body had darkened and flames were springing from her mane and tail. Heat washed out from her like a building fire. Everyone jumped away from her in shock; some ponies in the crowd screamed. In a voice that wasn’t quite hers, laced with venomous hate, Charcoal screamed, “That’s not my fault, you stupid sunblasted-” Then, just as soon as they’d started, the flames died down. Charcoal, clad in scorched furs, was standing in the middle of a melted puddle, unharmed but shocked into a thousand-yard stare. She blinked. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and bolted for the Watering Cave. “Inn,” Code declared. She marched toward it with the resolution of somepony who’d seen worse. Amanita quickly fell into line behind her, her head down. In the aftermath of Charcoal’s flare, silence reigned through the valley. Arrastra’s screams destroyed it, hanging in the air behind them. “Go tae grass, ye carrion crows!” Amanita only dimly remembered stumbling up the inn’s stairs or collapsing onto her bed. But Bitterroot throwing the locks on the door woke her from her fugue enough to look up. Everyone was in the room; Code was wiping snow from her neck, Bitterroot was pacing, and Charcoal was curled up on her bed, trembling. Before anyone else could speak, Charcoal raised her head. “I-I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Not your fault,” Code said. She gave herself a little shake to get the rest of the snow off her. “Yes, I’m talking about the flare. People get angry sometimes. It’s not your fault you happen to burst into flames when that happens to you.” “But-” “Not your fault,” Code repeated. “I-” “It’s not your fault,” Amanita said. “You were- You were just on fire for a second.” Charcoal snorted. “No, no, really,” Amanita said, sitting up more. “You, you got angry, and then suddenly you were on fire and no one was expecting it so it was a shock, but no one got hurt, did they? It’s, you barely did anything.” Charcoal blinked at Amanita. Her tail flicked. And she didn’t say anything, but she uncurled from her ball. “It’s not your fault,” Amanita repeated. “It’s mine. I- I should’ve-” She hung her head. What should she have done? She hadn’t made any mistakes in the ritual, no matter how critically she looked at her actions. The circle was ready to accept her magic. She just couldn’t find the soul. The soul of the pony who’d died just minutes before. The simplest sunblasted SORT of resurrection that she couldn’t do. Who did she think she was? She knew it was unhealthy, but she let her train of thought run away. It’d only be a matter of time before someone spoke and derailed it. Right? She looked up. Everyone seemed to be trying to look at each other without any two people looking at each other. There was a lot of shifting of weight and no words. Amanita forced herself to break the silence. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why I couldn’t resurrect her.” Words welled up inside her, pushed up by emotion. Excuses, apologies, explanations, panic, more. She forced them back down. If she started talking, no one else would get a word in. Code cleared her throat and started talking with the automaticity of someone running down a checklist. “You skewed the circle-” “-to account for the ley energies, yes.” Amanita wanted to scream that that was the first thing she’d checked. “The runes-” “The sentence was right, I felt the harmonics.” Amanita wanted to scream that the runes were the thing she knew best. “Are you sure?” Code asked, her voice strained and desperate. “Did you remember-” “I did everything right!” shrieked Amanita. Silence fell like a cinder block, except for Amanita’s heaving breaths. She blinked rapidly. “I-” she gasped. “I did everything right. I, I know I did. Right up to the katabasic dive. And then it just- stopped. That, that’s it, that’s all there is to it. It stopped. No liminality, no trance state, nothing. It’s like there wasn’t anyone at the other end to bring back.” Code briefly looked away to mouth something uncouth. “You’re sure? You didn’t feel any- other energies that could’ve disrupted-” “I know my own ritual,” Amanita said in a shaky voice. She was absolutely sure of that, but she couldn’t convince herself that she was sure of that. “There w-wasn’t anything like that, I c-could’ve adjusted…” She collapsed onto her rump and stared out at nothing. “I did everything right…” “Mother duck…” grunted Code, rubbing her forehead. Amanita’s vision seemed to swim. It focused only briefly when she blinked. Forget the resurrection; with one clean action, she’d scuttled any chance they had with the ley line. Once the story spread, the entire town would hate her — and the rest of the team, by extension. Tratonmane wouldn’t so much as speak to them. They couldn’t do any work. Three days. Just three days, and she’d destroyed the entire operation. Such an excellent worker. “Okay,” said Code. Her hooves twitched, like she was ready to start pacing. “It’s… probably for the best if we lie low for the rest of the day. Think things over, let everyone’s emotions die down. We… don’t need to worry about it just yet.” (The lie convinced no one.) “We still might be able to do our job.” The disbelief was so strong you could almost hear it. “I know,” Code said. “But we need some sort of a plan. This will get us through the next few hours.” She folded her ears back and pawed at the ground. “Then we can work on getting through the next few hours after that. We need to do our best to stay on top of things.” “Do you really think we can?” Amanita asked quietly. Code looked her square in the eyes and said, “We won’t know until we try.” She said it with the conviction of someone who had years — decades — of skill and experience. Skill and experience that Amanita would never have, because what she did have apparently counted for nothing. So, in spite of her doubts, Amanita managed to nod. Trying had led her down… many paths in her life. “If you ever have a better idea, feel free to tell me,” Code said. She sounded too tired for it to be snarky. “Any one of you,” she added to the rest of the room. “And Amanita? You should probably wash up.” Amanita blinked and touched her face. Right; she was still grimy from the tailings. From the earth’s perspective, she was covered in manure. Apt. She headed for the shower. It’d get the dust off, but it wouldn’t clean her. She hadn’t been clean ever since she’d run away with Circe. Amanita had been in a funk over potentially being a bad necromancer. Bitterroot had come here to offer pick-me-ups. And now that Amanita was in a funk over being a bad necromancer, Bitterroot didn’t know where to start. Life was funny like that. She let Amanita and Code and Charcoal talk with each other, mostly because she didn’t have the slightest clue of what to say. She’d never been quite so crushed as Amanita had been. And she would’ve tried to talk to Amanita, except that Amanita went straight to the shower. Fair, she was covered in wet coal dust, but still. She opened her mouth to ask Code if she could go flying to clear her head, remembered she wasn’t working for the Crown, and just said, “I’ll be back.” Without waiting for a response, she pushed open one of the windows, climbed out, and spread her wings. After spending a few moments climbing, Bitterroot flew through Midwich. She didn’t know where. Here and there and every which way that wasn’t over the forest. She just flew. It kept her blood moving, which helped her think. And she needed to think because she didn’t know what else to do. She’d experienced disapproval before, of course. Intense disapproval. It was part of being a bounty hunter; sometimes you had to break up a chill get-together between friends to slap an escaped murderer in fetters and bodily haul them away. But she wasn’t trying to help those people, not like Amanita had done. She walked in, caught the bad pony, walked out. Amanita had promised Tratonmane something and then failed to deliver. So what now? As flapping her wings took up too much brainpower, Bitterroot angled into a shallow spiral and started curling down to the ground. What could she offer Amanita that wouldn’t sound trite? Just some vague mentions that Amanita obviously knew her stuff, or Bitterroot wouldn’t be alive, maybe? The seminar that had gotten Amanita so worked up in the first place, where she’d taught Celestia? Nothing that would change the fact that necromancy had failed her. The important thing would brand itself in her memory. And the memory of the entire sunblasted town. The ground came up to meet her and Bitterroot landed forcefully. She picked a direction and started walking into the dark. One way or another, if there was ever a time when Amanita needed help, it was now, even if that help was just someone to scream with. For once since her arrival, Bitterroot really really wanted to leave, but now she couldn’t, not in good conscience. She didn’t feel irritated or begrudge Amanita anything; this was just how things turned out. Even if it did mean she was stuck in the kind of situation she’d normally just walk away from. If she’d left just an hour earlier and heard about this from Amanita later, would she feel guilty? …Probably. When the dark became darker and her hoofsteps began echoing, Bitterroot realized she’d somehow wound up walking into the train tunnel. With a sigh, she turned around and followed the rails back out. The sky above was moving towards night and Midwich Valley doing its best to capture the final light of day. It was by that last light that Bitterroot spotted the sign next to the train tracks that had said “Welcome to Tratonmane” on their way in. The wood was bright and the letters were dark, so even in this light, it was still somewhat readable. Bitterroot spared it a glance out of the habit that led to her reading all signs and kept walki- She did a double-take. The sign didn’t say, “Welcome to Tratonmane”. It said, “Welcome to Trat🜨nmane”. Bitterroot stared at the crossed circle that had replaced the “o”. That hadn’t been there before, had it? Or maybe she’d just missed it. Right? Or maybe it was the dark messing with her vision. She walked up to get a closer look. No, it wasn’t the dark. The cross seemed painted on like all the other letters. She poked at the paint. Not fresh, either. But was it a different color than the other letters? Put down later? Or was she just grasping at straws for a solid explanation for something strange in a stressful time? As she looked at the sign, she didn’t realize she was rubbing her neck. A cold wind blew up Midwich. Bitterroot shivered. The idea of a room felt good right then; she took off for the Watering Cave. Amanita was in the shower. The water was warm and plentiful. The comfort was cold and scant. Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale. It should’ve worked. It should’ve worked. It should’ve worked. It’d worked before. Every time. Always. Amanita knew she was doing it right. Right? Right. She had it memorized. She’d looked over every facet personally. The smaller amount of ingredients didn’t matter because of her changes. It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work? Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale. Pyrita was dead. Three days plus. Had to be. That was the only explanation. But she’d been up. She’d been walking. She’d been talking. How could that be dead? Bitterroot had been walking and talking when she’d been dead. But her soul was in her. The limit was because the soul didn’t want to leave the afterlife. Bitterroot had never been in the afterlife. Not then. But Pyrita had been walking. Her soul was in her. It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work? Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale. Amanita turned the shower off. She didn’t leave the stall. She hung her head and watched as coal-black water and the remains of the day spiraled down into the darkness of the drain. Nothing clogged. Hallelujah. It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work? Count. To. Four. Inhale. Count. To. Four. Exhale. They knew. She was a necromancer. They knew. All of Tratonmane. She’d told them. Yet she hadn’t done any necromancy. Somehow. So they shouldn’t hold that against her. Not a necromancer. Ha ha. Funny. Not a necromancer. Because she’d just done what any chump could’ve done. Just like all the other times. The times that had worked. It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work? Count to… Count to four, count to four. Inhale. Exhale. She slumped with her head against the wall, making gasps of not-quite crying. If she was a good necromancer, she’d know why it didn’t work. But she didn’t know. She just had a dead body and an angry town. Like a rank amateur. All those years, all those ponies she’d killed, all the things she’d done… Nothing. Pbbt. Worthless. Because if they weren’t, she’d know. But she knew just as much as Code. As anyone. So anyone could replace her. It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work? Four. Count to it. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale. The water dripping from her stole her warmth away. Amanita didn’t move. Why bother? Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale. …Tartarus. She’d run from a sunblasted lich, once. Was she really going to just sit there and mope? Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale. The idea was far nicer than she wanted to admit. But she couldn’t. Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale. Amanita raised her head and stepped out of the shower. The cold air bit at her even more as she toweled off. Her body decided the cold was more important than her other feelings and let it bully away her panic. Once that was gone, she pulled on her furs to push away the cold. It was successful enough. She looked in the mirror. A clueless moron looked back. She decided to ignore what she saw. Maybe it wasn’t reflecting properly and she could change it. Hopefully. In their room, Charcoal was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Code was pacing, staring at the floor. And Bitterroot was gone. Hearing Amanita’s approaching hoofsteps, Code looked up. “Amanita,” she said. “I need to talk to you.” Weariness had woven itself into her voice quite thoroughly. Her throat went dry, but Amanita nodded. They took a seat in a set of chairs. One of Code’s rear legs was twitching and her hoof tapped out a beat on the floorboards that she didn’t seem to notice. “You said it wasn’t Pyrita that died, correct? That she was already dead,” she said dispassionately. The memory lanced through Amanita’s mind like a lightning bolt. “Right, yeah.” “Hmm. Do you have any reason to think so besides the time limit?” Her stomach curling into an impressively tight knot, Amanita said, “She was- She was moving but she wasn’t resurrected when she should’ve been. What else do I need?” The words came out more accusative than she intended; she was too tired to wince. “Something to convince Arrastra,” murmured Code. She took off her glasses and set them on the desk. Her eyes seemed dull without them. As she rubbed the area around her ears, she said, “She probably wouldn’t listen to us even if we had proof. Grief. But without it, no one will. I was hoping you had something.” Amanita forced out a grin. “Heh. Sorry.” “Forgiven.” Code’s hoof started tapping the floor again. “I’ve been thinking about the healing ritual I performed on her yesterday. It seemed to work quickly, remember?” “But the Rite of Brave Spear needs you to focus on the pony being healed,” said Amanita. It was part of how it could work with so few ingredients. “If something was- using her body or whatever, then the pony you were focusing on wasn’t the person you were healing, so… what then?” “I don’t know,” said Code — a terrifying notion from the High Ritualist. “Maybe…” She waved a hoof vaguely. “Maybe the healing wasn’t spaced out properly and didn’t take. But I’m thinking about it. And if you ever need something to do, maybe think on that.” Amanita nodded. It’d do something to divert her attention from what it was doing now, at least. Code nodded back and looked off into the distance. “That’ll be all,” she mumbled. She didn’t exactly say it to Amanita so much as say it to the world, which included Amanita, if only by proximity. Still, that meant there was nothing left to do now but tell her. “Then I’m going to go for a walk,” Amanita said as she stood up. “I-” Swallow. “I’ve got some apologies I need to make.” “I can go with you,” Code said quickly. She snatched her glasses back and stood up as well. “You don’t need to do it alone.” “I think I do,” Amanita said. One of her rear legs twitched, bumping against the floor. “I was the one who did it. Or- didn’t do it.” Her attempted laugh came out as a wheeze. “I should be the one to- to talk to her.” Code tilted her head, not remotely convinced. Then she said, “If you think that’s best.” And back to pacing. But, Amanita reflected as she closed the door, she’d also thought attempting the resurrection was best.